Hertz and Avis declined to comment further for this article.
Like Wu, Doug Jensen discovered that he had to hire an EV from a Hertz facility in New York City because of unavailability. Having been given no guidance on charging, he ended up attempting to utilize Tesla chargers for his rental Kia automobile and initially failing to realize that they wouldn’t function. Then he had to contend with his hotel’s malfunctioning EV charger.
Hertz has complied with Jensen’s request to never own an EV again ever since, he claimed. To further ease his annoyance, Hertz offered him more loyalty points and a complimentary rental day.
The topic of charging is tricky.
Wu received her rental GV60 at roughly one in the morning in February in Kansas City, Kansas, with its batteries fully charged to 57%.The heat was running, and the battery was losing power more quickly than usual, so she had to find a charger soon.
Finding charges was simple, but she pointed out that the navigation software was displaying all of the chargers, including Tesla Superchargers. “Since I had no prior EV experience, I was unsure if my car would be compatible with Tesla Superchargers.”
In the end, Wu managed to locate a charger. She reported that after the EV was plugged in, she had a positive experience with it.
“Despite the fact that my automobile was in a parking lot many streets away, I could check its charge status from my phone. So everything was amazing,” the woman remarked.
Certain rental car agencies provide their clients with additional assistance. I’ve rented electric vehicles from Turo, a peer-to-peer car rental marketplace that functions similarly to Airbnb but with automobiles. Similar to Airbnb, some people have used Turo to start small businesses where they rent out their cars, some of which are EV-focused.
I’ve always received a good walkthrough of the car from a host when I’ve hired electric vehicles through Turo. The hosts would go over the features, which was quite useful when I leased a Tesla Cybertruck, an electric vehicle with plenty of quirky gadgets. The Cyber truck had just been released; therefore, the daily rental price had been over $1,000, including insurance. However, the cost of renting an EV is typically more comparable to that of a gas-powered vehicle.
